Thanks for enlightening us. I never knew that players tend to have worse offensive nights when they play against better defensive teams. Never really thought that was possible.
Those guys certainly are better in other areas of the game, but that's not what's being discussed here. From a purely scoring perspective those guys score 3 to 5 points more per game than Martin. Take away FTs from all of those guys and they still score 3 to 5 more per game than Martin. So, does Wade, Lebron and Kobe's offense all depend on FTs too? If Martin didn't get a single FT this season he's averaging 15.5 pts/game. Kobe with no FT averages 18.9, Wade 18.5, Lebron 19.2 and they are taking a lot more shots than Martin to get those 3 to 5 extra points. Go back and look at most any good scorer and it's likely that they went to the FT line alot. Heck, if you take away FT's then Olajuwon would only have averaged 17.4 pts/game for his career. If you want to complain about Martin not being an assist guy or playing good defense then fine, but getting to the FT line isn't a negative. People are acting like Martin averages 16 pts per game and that 12 of those points are coming from the FT line. The guy is 4th in the league in 3-pointers made.
Man, the Spurs have improved dramatically in the do-not-foul department since beginning of the season. Martin shot 7-10, 3-5 from behind the arc, and 7-8 from the line during the first meeting. I never knew the Spurs sucked so badly back then. How could they let "worthless-against-good-teams Martin" put up that kind of line on them?
There is nothing wrong with it. It's critical for success,however Martin's shortcomings on defense, play making become prominent when he doesn't get calls. It's not going to be as easy for him in a playoff situation,when he just bumps into them.
Hard to give a break when your only job is to score. Like a few others on the team, when not scoring/shot isnt falling, minus well go take a seat on the bench.
You're making an assumption that Martin won't go to the line in the playoffs. What are you basing that on? Let's look at the other high volume FT players and see how they did in their final playoff series last year: Lebron vs Bulls - Averaged 10 FT per game Kobe vs Boston - Averaged 8.57 FT per game Wade vs Boston - Averaged 8 FT per game. Durant vs Lakers - Averaged 10.5 FT per game. So, those guys all go to the FT line a lot in the regular season and they continued to go to the line in the playoffs. So , why do you assume that the same won't be true for Martin? In the big game the ref is going to swallow the whistle? Last year in the deciding game 7 of the championship series Kobe went to the line a whopping 15 times. That's the biggest game of the year and the refs were still blowing the whistle.
Interesting thread. There have been 9 games this season where Kevin Martin shot 4 free throws or less. These numbers are probably skewed because games where Martin struggles are also games where he could play less (and therefore shoot less free throws), but here are the numbers: 9 games where Kevin Martin shot 4 free throws or less 14.3 points on 37.9% shooting (32.6% three), 3.1 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 0.9 steals in 27.0 minutes 38 games where Kevin Martin shot more than 4 free throws 25.1 points on 45.7% shooting (41.6% three), 3.0 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 0.8 steals in 32.0 minutes Averages 1.9 free throw attempts in the 9 games, 10.1 attempts in the 38. That makes a huge difference in the points average. Not sure what this tells us necessarily, but those are the splits.
It tells us, for one, that he shoots a lower % because he gets fouled and no foul is called. I agree that he does flop too much on the offensive end but we all know the refs many times purposely don't call blatant fouls on him just because he tries to sell it.
Could be. Or maybe he doesn't get to the line because his whole game is off. Or maybe his whole game tends to be off against good defensive teams, the same teams that do a good job not fouling him. Edit: A few more ... there seems to be a stronger relationship between Martin's performance and opponent defensive ranking rather than his performance vs opponent FTA allowed. And better defensive teams usually don't foul as much.
We are well and truly screwed. All opposing coaches have to do is change their instructions from 'Foul all you like, I don't think it matters' to 'Don't foul' and Kevin Martin will be helpless! :grin:
Good post. The players you mention are all franchise players, and everyone would agree Martin is at a level below that. The fact that he averages at least three points less without FTs than anyone else reflect this, IMO. So in a way, it's impressive that a second-tier scorer can come close to the scoring outputs of better players, just because he maximizes his opportunities and shoots an incredible FT percentage.
Randomly looked up a superstar... Dwyane Wade 14 games 6fts or less: 19ppg 28 games 7fts or more: 28ppg I'm too lazy to do detailed stats, but peripheral glance at the game logs pretty much showed horrible shooting to go along with fewer FTs. I'd imagine similar cases with all superstars.
If martin ever makes it to the playoffs, he will flop. He is a good regular season player who needs the refs to help him alot. I hope I'm wrong,but I've seen non superstar guys like him falter big time with the physicality of the playoffs.
So, Martin gets calls during the regular season but he won't get them in the playoffs? Interesting theory, let's test it out. First let's pick a couple of non-superstars from the league leaders in FT attempts per game. The player should be a non-superstar so let's scratch Howard, Wade, Durant, Lebron, Amare, Carmello, Kobe and Deron Williams from the list. Griffin, Gordon, Love, Lopez and Ellis weren't in the playoffs last season so they're out too. That leaves us with Russell Westbrook and Gerald Wallace. Both good players but neither guy was a superstar last season. Now let's see how their FT attempts varied from regular season to playoffs: Westbrook : averaged 5.15 FT attempts/game in the 2009-2010 regular season. averaged 6.4 FT attepts/game in the 2010 playoffs Wallace: averaged 6.2 FT attempts/game in the 2009-2010 regular season. averaged 9.7 FT attempts/game in the 2010 playoffs. Both guys FT attempts/game actually went UP in the playoffs. So, Gerald Wallace will continue to get calls in the playoffs but Martin won't? Why ? Who are all of these players whose FT attempts are drastically falling off once they reach the playoffs? What I'm seeing is that the guys who go to the line the most in the regular season are also the guys that go to the line the most in the playoffs and if anything their rate of going to the line actually increases in the playoffs.
Yes there are. In his 2nd season (2005-2006) Martin played in 6 playoff games vs the Spurs. During the 2005-2006 regular season Martin averaged 3.1 FT attempts per game. In the playoffs vs the Spurs Martin averaged 4.83 FT attempts per game. Another example of a player's FT attempts going UP in the playoffs.
In that 05-06 season, Martin was not the focal point of that Kings team. He was a part time starter and not someone defenses would gameplan. Bibby, Bonzi, Artest and Shareef all would've been higher priorities at times that year. Peja, in limited games, would have been, as well. I believe Martin will be a playoff failure because his game is PREDICATED on getting to the line, whereas I believe almost every other scorer in the league gets fouled because defenses simply cannot stop them. Kevin, on the other hand, tricks defenders into fooling him...slight of hand almost. It is quite an important distinction, because when that is removed, which it can be by an educated defender and/or refs willing to swallow their whistles, Martin will be exposed as not being good enough on his own to carry a team. Addendum: He will fail as anything over being the 3rd or maybe...MAYBE...2nd option behind a dominant gamechanging first option. Addendum #2: Acquiring a physical, 1st tier wing defender would benefit Kevin in so many ways. Not only would he not have to D up opposing wing scorers, but he'd get a daily dose of physicality in practice, further preparing him for what he will see more of in the playoffs.
Martin isn't carrying the team in the regular season so I wouldn't expect him to carry a team in the playoffs. But will he continue to produce at a similar level in the playoffs? I don't see why not. Martin is a great shooter, has a very quick first step and the very best pump fake in the league so he's still going to get guys to jump at him. Go back and look at the actual playoff results for guys who shoot a lot of free throws...they are going to the line more, not less. Any of the top scorers will see their averages go down if the referee swallows his whistle and doesn't call any fouls, but that's simply not what's happened in the playoffs. This is not the days of Kurt Rambis getting clotheslined by McHale or Derek Harper mugging opponents with his hand checking. Refs are calling fouls in the playoffs at a similar or higher rate than the regular season. Why is it that Martin's game is predicated on getting to the line but Wade's isn't? They both get a large percent of their points from the line. Wade scores a couple of points more than Martin but he also gets to the line more than Martin (just does't make as good of a % of his FT). If a referee swallows his whistle against Wade, then he won't score as well either, nobody will but that's not what has happened. Wade jumps into defenders and falls on the ground to draw fouls, everyone knows that he does but he still gets the calls in both the regular season and playoffs. Kevin Martin's game has similarities to Reggie Miller's style. When Miller got to the playoffs and guys ran at him, he still stuck his leg out on his shot and he still drew fouls for it. Everyone in the building knew that Miller was going to stick his leg out and try and draw a foul an he still got the calls , even in the playoffs. If all it takes is an "educated defender" then why does Martin still have the success that he does in the regular season? It's no secret that he goes to the line a ton. Defenders don't suddenly get smarter during the playoffs, if all it took is for guys to decide to not foul Martin then they'd be doing it in the regular season too. If you leave Martin open he can kill you from the outside. If you run at him or try to play him close then you're likely to go for his ball fakes and foul him. If you play him close then he can go past the defender with his quick first step and then move back into the defender just like Wade and Kobe do. There's no easy way to stop him, that's why he's been so effective for several years now. A defender could certainly back off Martin in order to not foul but giving Martin open shots isn't neccessarily a great strategy either.
